Thursday, December 11, 2008

Lilli's biscotti

Lilli's biscotti

You know how sometimes you have a memory of a favorite dish and nothing else can compare to that version? Maybe it's the cheesecake you ate at that diner, or the lasagna your mother used to make. For me, when it comes to biscotti, nothing holds a candle to this recipe from my friend Lilli. Sure, there are plenty of delicious biscotti around, but this recipe is the one I keep making time after time. It's my benchmark and everything else comes in second. They're crunchy without being rock-hard. They're not too sweet, just sweet enough. And they're as addictive as potato chips. One friend who visited ate nearly the entire plate of biscotti - leaving nothing but a lot of crumbs on the sofa. These do make a mess when you're eating, so have a napkin handy. I don't usually add the dried cranberries, but with Christmas approaching, they're a festive touch. The only thing needed now is a cup of espresso - or a glass of vin santo. Enjoy.

Lilli's biscotti

1 stick of unsalted butter, softened1 cup sugar4 eggs3 cups flour3 tsp. baking powder2 tsp. vanilla1 pinch salt1 cup whole almonds, toasted ahead of time in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes1/2 cup dried cranberries, optionalMix sugar and butter together until blended. Add eggs, one at a time. Add flour, baking powder, vanilla, and salt until all is blended. Scrape from the bottom to make sure everything is mixed in. The batter will be very stiff. Add the almonds (and dried cranberries if using) either with a durable wooden spoon, or with your mixer. Don't mix for long if using a mixer since you don't want to break up the almonds.Take about 1/3 of the mixture and plop it onto a well-floured counter or board. Shape into a "log" that resembles a small, flat loaf of bread, tapering the two ends at an angle. It's a sticky dough, so you'll need to keep your hands and board floured. Repeat two more times with the remainder of the dough. Butter a cookie sheet and place the "logs" on the cookie sheet, leaving ample room between them. Coat with a thin layer of milk or beaten egg. Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven until golden - about 25 to 30 minutes.Remove from oven and turn the heat up to 450 degrees. Carefully place one of the "logs" on a cutting board, using two spatulas if necessary to keep it from splitting. With a sharp knife (I use a serrated knife) slice the cookies at a diagonal. Hold one hand firmly on the log while you cut with the knife in the other hand, so you don't break the dough and crumble the cookies. A few are bound to break. Place the cookies back on a cookie sheet and bake at 450 degrees for about five minutes. Watch carefully so they don't burn. Flip the cookies over and bake another five minutes on the other side. Makes about four dozen biscotti.

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Making Pasta With A Torchio

The Torchio

The device you see in the slides above is a "torchio," a hollow brass tube attached to a bench or a wall. Different metal "dies" can be inserted in the torchio for different shapes of pasta. The torchio belonged to my mother's family in Italy. After decades of collecting dust in my basement, the torchio was recently resurrected when my father offered to make a bench for it. The torchio is screwed to the bench, semolina pasta dough is fed into the tube, the crank is turned, (in this case by my son Michael) and with a lot of elbow grease, pasta is extruded through the die. What comes out below is a tubular pasta - anything from thin spaghetti to bucatini, similar to a hollow straw.

About Me

In my last life, I was a journalist in NYC, but left the rat race to live in Italy for a year. I created this blog upon my return to combine my interests of writing and photography with my love of food and travel. My mother was from the region of Emilia-Romagna, my father's family was from Calabria and my late husband's family is Abruzzese. Is it any wonder then, that Italian art, music, food and the country's beautiful landscape are among my passions? I hope you will try some of the recipes and post comments. Buon Appetito. Linda